About Me – Page 23

Categories: About Me

The Struggle of Acceptance

I’m afraid of missing out.

I’m afraid of not living my life by the mantra “YOLO!”

I’m afraid of wasting my time, of not measuring up to my version of success, of not measuring up to other’s versions of success.

I’m afraid of not being special, not being important, not being necessary.

I’m afraid of dying and I’m afraid of living.

Not that I’m suicidal, or even depressed. I’m not. Life just feels… overwhelming at times. There’s so much to do. So much to see. So much to measure up to. So much to hurt. So much to love. So much to be.

I’m afraid I can’t do it all.

I have friends who fill up their free time with adventures and funny dating stories and traveling and just doing. They don’t sit still. They have buckets and buckets of energy. I get tired from even one night out.

It’s probably why I hate dating so much. Even one date expends so much of my limited energy. And if the date goes well and then I have to consider adding a person into my solitary lifestyle? Forget it. It feels like too much work.

I always wonder what it’s like to be the kind of person who thrives on being busy, of balancing a ton of responsibilities. Someone who makes plans upon plans during their weekend, barely having time for sleep.

I thought I had accepted who I am.

I’m introverted, which means I get drained by social interaction.

I have social anxiety, which means my mind is constantly buzzing with worries of what people are thinking of me when I’m with them.

I’m highly sensitive, which means loud places and conversations rattle me.

All of this thrown together gives you a person who thrives on slowness. On quiet. On calm. On peace.

And I like that about me. I like that I am content in my own company, happiest for quiet nights in and lazy weekends.

But I also don’t like that about me. I don’t like that it takes so much energy for me to go out. I don’t like that my natural personality is one who is a hermit and that I have to force myself to make plans with friends and accept social invitations.

And not to mention, when I do go out and be social, I never feel totally comfortable, no matter where I am. (See above: social anxiety) I’m always worried about something. I’m worried about the logistics of where I’m going. I’m worried about holding a conversation. I’m worried about what people are thinking of me and if they actually even want me at this event.

It’s exhausting. It’s so exhausting to be in my head.

So what’s the solution? How do I let go of the fears and the worries and the constant anxiety? How do I finally start living a YOLO-kinda life? How do I stop being afraid that I’m wasting my time?

Therapy would probably help.

But more than therapy (which I do admit I need, no doubt about that), I think it comes to truly accepting who I am. Which is hard, when the whole world is filled with extroverts. And yeah, sure, introverts are having their time right now. But truly? Extroverts still rule the world. And I don’t fit into that world.

I’m a girl who hates to be busy. I like quiet weekends with one or two (or zero, even) social engagements. I don’t have the mental stamina to stay out all night (and I never have; this isn’t a cutesy “oh, I’m just getting old! Tehehe.” No. I was this way at 20.) and I hoard my alone time like a fiend.

And the people in my life understand this about me. They get it. I’m not saying I have friends who think I’m weird for my need for alone time. Quite the opposite. But there’s still this… fear… that I’m not doing enough. That I’m letting myself off the hook. That I need to be more extroverted… even though I am 100% not an extrovert and I shouldn’t strive to be.

(And don’t even get me started about dating. Dating is a whole other version of hell when you’re shy, introverted, and socially anxious.)

I’ve definitely come out of my shell more in the past few years. I’ve made a close circle of girlfriends. I try to make plans on the weekends, even if it’s just one thing and the rest of my weekend is spent puttering around my apartment, writing and reading. But it’s still hard to look at other people’s lives and realize how different mine is. How less exciting, less courageous, less bold. I worry that I’m wasting my time.

When it comes down to it, though, I think we’re all scared that we’re not doing enough. Some of us may feel like we need to get out more, while others may feel like they don’t know how to relax and unwind. We all want our lives to mean something. We’re all afraid of wasting this precious time on Earth.

The truth is, we’re not wasting time or missing out or not living up to the “YOLO” standard. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. We’re all trying to be the best versions of ourselves, and sometimes we fail at that and sometimes we succeed and that is the absolute beauty of life. That is the power of the human experience – failure and success and trying.

Let’s all keep trying.

Categories: About Me

A to Z Survey

It’s wedding weekend – ahh! I can’t believe my mom gets married tomorrow. It is going to be such a fun day (and I promise a full recap next week!) Since my mind can’t really focus on anything other than wedding preparations, I thought this survey that I saw on another blog would be a fun Friday post! Go ahead and steal it for your own blog – can’t wait to see your answers!

A. Age: 27

B. Biggest fear: Losing my mom

C. Current time: 9:23 p.m.

D. Drink you had last: Grape Gatorade

E. Easiest person to talk to: My mom

F. Favorite song: Right now, I love rocking out to “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten

G. Grossest memory: Oh, gosh, nothing surpasses the time I went to watch my brother’s soccer practice and afterward, he downed a lime-green Gatorade, which he promptly threw up in front of everyone. I’ve never been able to drink lime-green Gatorade since then.

H. Hometown: St. Petersburg, FL

I. In love with: This man!

J. Jealous of: People who got the chance to have a normal college experience

K. Kindest person you know: My soon-to-be roomie, Bri. She’s the kind of person who will drop everything and be there for you when you need her. I feel like the luckiest person in the world that she wants to live with me!

L. Longest relationship: Umm

M. Middle name: Marie

N. Number of siblings: Just one

O. One wish: For Dutch to feel better

P. Person you spoke to on the phone last: The receptionist at my eye doctor to give her my insurance information! Ha.

Q. Question you’re always asked: “How are you?” is the only one I can think of… I’m not asked any actual questions on such a frequent basis as to remember them.

R. Reason to smile: This squishy little baby

S. Song you last sang: “Put Your Records On” (such a fun song to sing along to!)

T. Time you woke up: 6:00 a.m.

U. Underwear color: Nude!

V. Vacation destination: Anywhere a cruise ship will take me

W. Worst habit: Biting the skin around my thumb. Nervous habit!

X. X-rays you’ve had: Numerous ones at the dentist, twice for my foot/ankle, and once for my thumb when I sliced it open and had to get it stitched (the ER doc wanted to make sure there wasn’t any more glass embedded inside the cut).

Y. Your favorite food: Subs from Publix. I’m addicted. I have 2-3 a week.

Z. Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

Who is the kindest person you know? What is one wish you have right now?

Categories: About Me

On Being a Good Girl

I was the kid who never needed a curfew. Who once grounded herself because she wanted to know what it felt like. Who never stepped foot in detention or a principal’s office. Who rarely talked back to her mom… and would feel intense amounts of guilt anytime she did.

My mom never once worried about where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. I was the quintessential good girl. I didn’t drink, I didn’t party, and I’ve never done drugs. I’ve never been grounded, and the only time I was ever in serious trouble (I can’t even remember the reason), my mom opted to take the computer and my books away from me. (IT WAS AWFUL, YOU GUYS. AWFUL. AWFUL. AWFUL.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the plight of the good girl, lately. It’s part of my identity and there are times that I wear my good girl persona as a badge of honor and times when I wish I had been a little more badass, gotten myself into a little more trouble, had cooler stories to tell friends.

Being a good girl is something that has followed me into adulthood. I am a bona fide rule follower. My library books are never late. I only cross the street if the pedestrian signal is flashing. I pay my bills on time. I won’t even jaywalk!

I wonder a lot about how I ended up the way I did. Why didn’t I veer off onto a different path, especially considering my childhood. I’ve written about it a few times on the blog, so I don’t want to rehash all of that. My home life was messy. I didn’t have a normal childhood, which is what makes me wonder how I decided to veer on the straight and narrow, to harness the personality of a good girl, rather than something… else.

I think the easiest explanation is that I needed control. There was a lot about my childhood that felt out of control, so being a good girl was something I could have total control over. I could control my schooling and be the best student possible. I could control being the best child, to lessen the stress my mom was under, and to hopefully earn my dad’s love. And that’s what I did. I threw myself into schoolwork and I tried to be the very best daughter for my parents. That I could control.

And it worked out for me. It really did. I graduated from high school with honors. I paid my way through college, graduating with honors. I’ve held down two post-grad jobs, excelling in both. I’ve forged friendships with people who are similar to me – I don’t have time for people who are more concerned with drama or getting wasted on the weekends or any of that. I just don’t. It doesn’t appeal to me. And sure, maybe I could have had more interesting stories to tell if I’d been less of a good girl. My good girl persona extends to my dating life and how I am very selective about the type of people I choose to date, to which someone once told me, “That’s boring.” Yep. It is. And I am proud to be boring to some people. Bring on the boring.

Being a good girl is just who I am. I’m proud of that child who threw herself into school and being good, rather than boys and finding her worth in other people. I’m proud of the woman I have become – someone who appreciates who she is. Someone who has created a life she really loves. And, though I know rules are meant to be broken every now and then, it also doesn’t mean my story is any less interesting if they aren’t.

Categories: About Me

The 10 Question Meme

It’s no secret that I love listening to podcasts. I currently subscribe to 22 podcasts, and I’ve listed a few of my favorites in this post. I should probably write another version because I’ve added a ton of new podcasts to my feed since I wrote that post, many of which I love more than the ones listed there.

But I digress.

One of my favorite podcasts is The Art of Simple. It’s funny that I love this podcast so much since it’s a bit motherhood-centric and I generally don’t enjoy those types of podcasts (obviously, since I’m in a completely different stage of life/not sure I even want to have children). But there’s something about Tsh and the way she interviews her guests. It’s fun to listen to, and I’m always a bit giddy when she has a new podcast up. Whenever she has a new guest on the show, she asks them the below 10 questions. They’re simple and fun and designed for a quick reply. So when Amber and then Lisa both wrote a post detailing their answers to the 10 questions, I thought it would be fun to play along.

Here we go!

1. Twitter or Facebook?

This is difficult because I don’t use either very regularly anymore. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even have a Facebook if I didn’t use it for communicating with my book club girls! My favorite form of social media is Instagram these days, but if I had to choose between Twitter or Facebook, I’d pick Facebook since it keeps me in touch with friends and family. And I’d have to echo Amber’s thoughts that Twitter has a bit too much noise. (I even deleted about 150 people I was following, and it’s still a bit noisy!)

2. Morning person or night owl?

I’m more of a morning person than a night owl. I’d rather work out in the morning than at night, wake up early than stay up late, and I generally prefer daylight to nighttime.

3. How do you drink coffee?

Lots of ways! I love coffee as a frap (which is basically a dessert) or in latte form. If I’m drinking regular coffee, I take it with two creams and a dash of sugar.

4. It’s 9pm and you’ve got the house to yourself, what do you do?

Well, as a single gal, these nights are all too common. (And I love that!) Typically, I’ll take a hot bubble bath and then lay in bed to read!

5. What’s on your nightstand right now?

A lamp, an old-fashioned alarm clock, a coin jar, and the current book I’m reading.

6. What smell do you love?

Coffee. Freshly cut grass. Chocolate chip cookies baking. The ocean. Sheets straight from the dryer.

7. What smell do you hate?

Cinnamon. Cigarette smoke. Burned meat or fish.

8. Other than your current home, where would you most like to live?

No surprise here – Savannah, GA! I truly believe I will call that city home someday.

9. If you could only eat one nationality of food for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

That’s an easy one – Italian. Any other nationality of food I can take or leave (yes, this includes Mexican food. I really have to be in the mood for Mexican. I can go weeks without eating it and be just fine.), but this girl loves her pasta!

10. When you were six years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

At that age, probably a veterinarian. I loved animals so much and thought being around them all the time would be so much fun. (I held onto this dream until I was 16 years old and took a college-level science course. That’s when I realized a science degree was not in the cards for me!)

Other than your current home, where would you live?

Categories: About Me

Limitless

I’ve started running again.

I had to start running because I signed up to run a 5k at the end of March in Savannah. And I would like to be able to run the majority of that race without, you know, wanting to die.

I have a love/hate relationship with running. I love it when it feels easy and I hate it the rest of the time.

So mostly I hate it.

I don’t look forward to my early morning runs, but there is literally nothing in the world that tops my feeling when I finish a run and fulfilled my goal. (Which is, thus far, completing all the intervals given to me on Couch-to-5k.)

I have to coach myself through the running. I have a bunch of little mantras:

Nobody said this was going to be easy.

It’s okay to be uncomfortable.

Pain is weakness leaving the body. (Even I roll my eyes at that one. OKAY?!)

Nothing good in life ever came for free or easy.

You can do hard things. You can do things you didn’t think were possible.

Running makes me feel capable. It makes me believe in the possible.

The number one reason I don’t reach my goals isn’t because I’m afraid of hard work. No. It’s because I don’t know if I deserve good things. It’s because those big goals I want in life are scary as hell, and I don’t know if I’m good enough to achieve them.

I learned this term the other day: Upper Limit Problem. Marie Forleo explains it better than I can:

Each of has an internal thermometer for how much success, wealth, happiness, love, and intimacy we’ll let ourselves experience. That’s our upper limit setting. Kind of like our success comfort zone.

When we exceed our internal thermostat setting and life gets super duper OMG good (we have an influx of money, get healthy and thin, find a great relationship) – we unconsciously do things to sabotage ourselves, so we can drop back to the old, familiar place where we feel in control.

A “success comfort zone.” The upper limit to what you think is possible. And when things in your life start exceeding that upper limit, when what you thought wasn’t possible in your life suddenly become possible – and not just possible, but on top of the world amazing – we fall back into old patterns so we can get back to our comfort zone. It makes so much sense. At least in my life.

I’ve been in this unending cycle of wanting to lose weight, and losing weight, and then falling back into old habits because – just for a moment – I was finding success. Success that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Success that I wanted but I didn’t feel I deserved. Success that I worked for but didn’t know if I was good enough to keep.

And running. I’ve started and stopped running so many times. I stop when it gets too hard and complain I’m just “not the running type.” I stop even when things are going well and I’m on pace to meet my goal because this is “uncomfortable” and I “just don’t want to do it anymore.” (You can go ahead and imagine a foot-stomping to go along with it. I’ll wait.)

There is no limit to what we are capable of. The possibilities are unending. We can do whatever we want. I want my life to be one where I fought. I fought for not finding the good, but the great. Not settling for good enough, but striving for better than I could imagine. Finding what lights me up, what I am passionate about, what fuels me, and fighting for it. We only get one life. I only have one chance to get this right. And I’m going to fight for what I want. I’m going to set goals and believe in the power of myself to work my ass off to get it. The time is now. It’s not next week or next year or when I’m skinny or when I’m more financially stable. It’s right now.

This is the year we all put a stop to the self-pity and the negativity and the foot-stomping. And we dig in deep, grit our teeth, and find the courage, the bravery, and the guts to go after what we want. I’m going to stop believe there is an upper limit to what I am capable of, an upper limit to what I deserve, an upper limit to my success. There is no limit. There is no comfort zone. There is only fighting for what we want, grabbing onto the success we find, and enjoying the ride.